TikTok Myth of the Week: All Your Problems Are Due to High Cortisol

Do you like sweet and salty foods? Perhaps your sleep isn’t the best? Do you have belly fat? The answer to these questions is probably yes, because you are human, but that doesn’t matter right now! TikTok influencers would like you to consider another possibility: your cortisol levels are too high and you should buy their supplements (link in bio!) to control it. Then you will be relaxed at night and full of energy in the morning, enjoy the taste of cabbage, and most importantly, you will become slim and beautiful.

This idea of ​​cortisol dysregulation has become something of a mega-phenomenon, absorbing the power and anxiety of everything it touches. If you search for cortisol information on TikTok, you’ll find weight loss tips, sleep hygiene tips, massage techniques, and more. You’ll be treated to videos not only about cortisol, but also about gut issues, mood issues, healing from trauma, smoothie recipes, menstrual cycle sync, when you should and shouldn’t drink caffeine, and any other health concerns among women. maybe google it. (Sorry guys, this content is not for you. Not yet.)

Scroll through these videos long enough and you’ll see a complaint about every symptom or discomfort you’ve ever experienced. They say it’s all due to high cortisol levels.

What is cortisol?

Stepping away from TikTok land for a moment to talk about actual physiology, cortisol is a hormone we produce from our adrenal glands, which are located above our kidneys.

The adrenal glands are known to produce adrenaline, which you may recognize as the “fight or flight” hormone we call adrenaline. (In the US, adrenaline is the medical name. Both words mean the same thing : hell + kidney is the Latin word for “above the kidneys,” and epi + nephro is the same in Greek.)

In addition to epinephrine/epinephrine, the adrenal glands also produce hormones that regulate water and electrolyte balance, as well as small amounts of sex hormones. And – relevant to our topic today – they also produce cortisol. While adrenaline is involved in the short-term fight-or-flight response, cortisol is a hormone that helps us cope with stress in the long term , such as days to weeks or longer.

Cortisol levels increase when you are sick, pregnant, severely dehydrated, recovering from surgery, or when your body is under extreme stress. And your cortisol levels should increase – that’s good! People who do not produce enough cortisol in such situations may experience an adrenal crisis , which can be fatal.

In other words, cortisol helps our body respond appropriately to stress, especially severe, life-threatening physical stress. If you’ve ever taken glucocorticoid medications (with names like cortisone, prednisone, or dexamethasone) or applied hydrocortisone cream to a rash, these are all forms of cortisol.

There are diseases in which the body does not produce enough cortisol, such as Addison’s disease, and diseases in which the body produces too much cortisol, such as Cushing’s disease. Both of these questions should be discussed with your doctor rather than your friendly local TikToker, but more on that in a moment.

What People Say About Cortisol on TikTok

We’ve covered some cortisol claims above, but to give you some more examples, here are some things that TikTok health experts say are signs that your cortisol levels are too high:

• We wake up between 2 and 4 am.
• Fatigue in the morning and “tension” or excessive thoughts at night
• Cravings for sweet and/or salty foods
• Having belly fat or love handles (cortisol belly)
• Round face (“moon face”)
• Cognitive difficulties such as brain fog or problems making decisions.
• Feeling restless or irritable
• Acne
• Swelling or fluid in the face, abdomen, or other areas
• Intestinal problems (any)
• Feeling shaky due to (presumably) high blood sugar.

What “High Cortisol” Symptoms Really Mean

In fact, these symptoms are not specific enough to indicate elevated cortisol levels or anything else. Some of them are common enough and minor that everyone probably encounters them sometimes; who doesn’t crave candy?

I find it particularly interesting that these symptoms are popular among women who are promoting weight loss advice or seeking weight loss advice. If you diet all the time, you may have many of these symptoms! Low energy (calorie) levels are associated with poor sleep, brain fog, bowel problems, feelings of irritability, dizziness or shaking due to low blood sugar, and for many people, an obsession with any fat they have, no matter how small or small. a large number of.

Others may signal serious health problems if they are severe enough. For example, you may think you have a “moon face” if your normal face shape is round; this is actually not a problem. But if your face has always been thin and then becomes round over a period of months or years, this is a textbook symptom of Cushing’s syndrome ; you should go to an endocrinologist.

It’s “adrenal fatigue” again.

The term “high cortisol” for these symptoms is new and appears to have come from quite the opposite. About five years ago, adrenal fatigue was a major issue. Remember when Gwyneth released a packet of vitamins specifically to solve this problem ?

The idea behind adrenal fatigue was that your body was so stressed that it burned out and stopped producing stress hormones; Symptoms include fatigue, weight gain, and cravings for salt and sugar. Sounds familiar? Adrenal fatigue has been completely debunked by scientists ; the symptoms don’t even match the suspected cause.

On the other hand, these symptoms are somewhat consistent with high cortisol levels. Oddly enough, there are TikToks calling “adrenal fatigue” another name for “high cortisol,” which is an oxymoron; But the myth of high cortisol accumulates other myths as it develops, so it easily absorbed this one.

Another phrase that is being used these days by both medical professionals and (perhaps more often) TikTokers who make stuff up is “HPA axis dysfunction.” These letters refer to three parts of your body that are involved in regulating cortisol levels:

• The hypothalamus (H) is the part of your brain that can produce corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), which signals the pituitary gland.
• The pituitary gland (P) is located just below the hypothalamus and when it receives CRH, it releases adrenocorticotropic hormone, or ACTH, to signal the cortisol-producing part of the adrenal glands.
• The adrenal glands (A) release cortisol in response to ACTH.

High cortisol levels cause the hypothalamus and pituitary gland to stop or produce less of the hormones that trigger cortisol. If something in this system fails (perhaps one of the components does not respond to signals properly), it will become a problem. “HPA axis dysfunction” is a general term (not a specific diagnosis) for the reasons why it can go wrong. However, on TikTok it is sometimes used as a replacement for “adrenal fatigue.”

What TikTokers Say Causes High Cortisol Levels

TikToks are much better at identifying the symptoms of high cortisol than explaining why we all have this supposed hormonal dysfunction.

However, there are several scapegoats. Since cortisol is often (legally) referred to as the stress hormone, TikTokers seem to assume that it affects everyone who is stressed or has a busy life, which is, essentially, all of us. Caffeine is also mentioned in some of these TikToks, but there is no conclusive evidence that morning coffee affects your hormones.

Where fear mongering really gets out of control, however, is the involvement of exercise. Longtime Lifehacker readers will remember me talking about the popular TikTok myth that HIIT (interval training) and weight lifting raise cortisol levels and make you fat, while Pilates keeps you lean. ( This is not true .) Let me quote myself while I do:

Blood cortisol levels increase after high-intensity exercise, but these levels return to normal within an hour. We also adapt quite quickly to high-intensity exercise, as exercise physiologist John Hough notes here : His research group’s work showed that after 11 days of high-intensity cycling, these temporary cortisol spikes were much lower. (Other studies support this.) In other words, the more we exercise, the better we cope with physiological stress. Any athlete or coach could tell you this.

The exercise-induced cortisol release is simply not considered a significant factor in weight gain if you talk to actual endocrinologists (hormone specialists) or scientists who study exercise or metabolism.

Related to this is another myth: the idea that if you ovulate and menstruate (as many women do who are not taking hormonal birth control), intense exercise during certain phases of your cycle will raise your cortisol levels to extreme levels and cause the symptoms discussed previously. This is also not true .

What Actually Causes High Cortisol Levels

Here we will take a quick break into the world of reality: there are diseases that cause high levels of cortisol in the body, and they can be serious and even life-threatening.

Keep in mind that cortisol is a hormone that should rise in response to stress; For example, during pregnancy, levels are two to four times higher than normal. It also rises and falls every day, usually peaking in the morning when we wake up; at night this is the lowest value. (The size of this fluctuation, and even whether you have it, varies greatly from person to person. Don’t trust a naturopath or chiropractor who wants to diagnose you with high cortisol based solely on measuring this curve.)

Thus, a slight increase in cortisol levels as a result of normal life stresses is usually not a medical problem. But there is abnormally elevated cortisol.

Here’s a great example that shows what TikToks users are doing right and what they’re doing wrong. Bridget Houser, profiled in The Washington Post’s series of medical mysteries , suffered from headaches, anxiety, thinning hair and a tendency to gain weight, which she managed by increasing her amount of exercise. Her face became round. Several doctors have suggested that her symptoms may be caused by stress from her upcoming (or, if symptoms continue, recent) wedding.

She ended up with cancer: a tumor in her lung was releasing ACTH, a hormone that is normally a signal from the pituitary gland (located in the head, under the brain) that regulates cortisol levels in the body. Sometimes out-of-control cancer cells can interfere with this hormonal conversation, and that’s what happened to Hauser. After she had surgery to remove the tumor, her cortisol levels dropped and her symptoms disappeared.

There are other diseases besides cancer that can cause similar symptoms, but they occur under conditions of extreme stress. This review article lists several scenarios in which abnormally high cortisol levels have been observed, including:

• alcohol use disorder
• late stage chronic kidney disease
• major depression, anxiety and some other mental health diagnoses.

If you think you have high cortisol levels to the point that it is affecting your health, see a real doctor.

How to Lower Cortisol Levels, According to TikTok

TikTokers, once they convince you that you have health problems, will have no shortage of answers for you. Most of these answers end up putting money in their pocket: there are dozens, if not hundreds, of “adrenal support” supplements that TikTokers with affiliate codes will happily sell you. You can also part with your money by purchasing courses in specific types of massage or meditation, such as EFT tapping (you tap on the “meridian points” on your body to focus on negative emotions) or “trauma-releasing” floor exercises .

TikTok is always happy to support you in the food is medicine movement, so there are plenty of video clips showing foods you should and shouldn’t eat, as well as “adrenal cocktails” you can mix and drink every morning. Supplements you should take include a variety of regular vitamins (sometimes specific B vitamins) and recommendations for supplementing with adaptogens such as ashwagandha. There is no definitive research linking these recommendations to adrenal health, but eating vegetables and protein is good for us anyway. If TikTok tells you to eat more kale, you might not need to , but it won’t necessarily hurt.

In a similar vein, TikTok videos will name sleep disturbances as a symptom of high cortisol levels and then recommend basic sleep hygiene measures as a supposed treatment for high cortisol levels. Cortisol is an unnecessary intermediary here, whether it is actually involved or not; If you have poor sleep, you should try to sleep better . I’ll just add that if your sleep is still terrible after you’ve established a routine of phone-free sleep and morning walks in the sun, you might want to ask your doctor about getting tested for sleep apnea.

Why you shouldn’t listen to TikTok about how to reduce cortisol

According to TikTok, high cortisol levels are so important that you must fix it, and this change will change your life; but it’s also so minor that you don’t need to seek medical help and can fix it yourself. These two ideas don’t really go together.

This combination becomes dangerous when it comes to real-life medical issues—imagine if Bridget Hauser, a woman with cancer, took to TikTok to get diagnosed and treated. Or take another example: There’s a corner of TikTok where women tell each other that your husband’s “short fuse” is actually a sign of high cortisol levels. Sorry, but if your husband has anger management issues, what you need is not a video instruction on what supplements he should take.

Ultimately, if you think you have symptoms of elevated cortisol levels, it is important to consider how severe your symptoms are and act accordingly. If you’re feeling stressed and think a yoga class or an “adrenaline shake” of orange juice and coconut water might help, be my guest. Maybe it will help, but if not, no harm, no foul.

On the other hand, if you have symptoms that are seriously affecting your life and health, see a real doctor. An endocrinologist can diagnose hormonal problems, but you may be better off starting with the symptoms rather than guessing at the cause. For example, if you wake up frequently at night and feel groggy in the morning, you might want to talk to a sleep specialist.

One last note: if you’re scrolling through TikTok and think you might have a hormonal problem, there are plenty of “hormone balance coaches” out there who will offer to take you under their wing and order a bunch of expensive tests to figure out what’s wrong. continues. It’s not the same as going to a doctor who actually knows what he’s doing . These hormone coaches may prescribe the wrong tests and usually do not have access to the types of tests used in the medical diagnosis of hormonal problems. Please go see a real doctor.